University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Chef Fritz Blank (1942 August 25 – 2014 September 9) was a prominent chef, restaurateur, and gastronome during the beginnings of Philadelphia’s second-wave restaurant renaissance in the 1980s. His Victus Populi collection comprises over 3,000 recipe booklets, pamphlets, and cookbooks but constitutes only a small subset of Chef Fritz Blank’s enormous cookbook library that was set apart by its focus on the American consumer and home cook. Blank titled the collection Victus Populi (Latin for “Food of the People”) because he saw these pamphlets as one of the best sources of historical information about purchasing, cooking, and consumption habits of the American public in the 20th century. Many of the items appear to be promotional items or product premiums, often produced using relatively inexpensive materials and, as evidenced by extensive wear-and-tear and the occasional spatter, heavily used in household kitchens.